Hey guys, as some of you may know I am participating in NaNoWriMo this year! For those of you who don't know what that is: national novel writing month, in which writers try to write 50,000 words by the end of the month. Because of that my updates will suffer this November, hopefully I'll have time for both but it might be hard.

If any of you are doing NaNo as well, PM me with your username and we can be writing buddies! :D

So here's another post Reichenbach, hopefully I haven't used this idea already (I keep worrying I'll forget I've written something and write it again!) Enjoy!

John's friends really did try to keep in touch with him, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, Molly, anyone close enough to him to know what had happened three years prior.

They really did try to check in on him on the anniversary of the fall every year, they did try to help him grocery shop, and take him out to the pub, and go for walks with him. It wasn't that they had forgotten him, or that they had stopped caring. Rather, it was that John had stopped putting up with their help, he had never wanted it in the first place and only let them help because he knew they were worried. He knew they needed to see him functioning like a normal human being.

They didn't know that John would never work right again, that Afghanistan had broken him and the only thing that had made him whole again...

...was Sherlock.

The beautiful, wonderful, bastard of a man who had jumped off that roof three years ago and broken John all over again. It used to be that Sherlock and John were the inseparable duo, always close. Now John's only constant companion was his cane, a bitter reminder of the pain in his leg and the traumatic event from which it stemmed.

John was leaning on that cane right now, his whole body shifted to one side in the pained limp he'd worn after coming home from war. This time Sherlock was the war he had survived, and he almost wished he hadn't.

John was walking through the park where he'd first met with Stamford and heard about the strange man hoping to find a flatmate. The only reason he was out is that he'd had everyone from his sister to the detective-inspector of Scotland Yard calling him up and asking him if he'd been out at all that week and "wasn't he getting tired of hiding away from the world?"

So here he was, proving to the world that he wasn't hiding. He wasn't afraid of all these people living their lives, he'd just decided that he had nothing left to live for. The events of his life ended with that hospital roof, and that was left was waking up and going to work, coming home and going to sleep.

John limped further, barely looking at the scenery. The park was nearly empty right now apart from a few families, a couple sitting on a bench whispering sweet nothings into each other's ears, and a thin man in a black hoodie smoking and walking slowly down the path.

Suddenly John's cane slipped and he felt himself stumble. He braced himself for the pain of hitting the ground and the humiliation of facing the crowds of people asking if he was okay, but neither came. Instead strong arms caught him and gently righted him. It was the smoker, the one John just saw.

"...Thanks...thanks mate." John sighed, pulling himself up by using the stranger's arm. The man was silent, and John could just barely make out a pale face nodding in response before the stranger had taken off quickly in the other direction.

John shook his head, not sure if he should be grateful for his savior's silence or confused by it. There was something about that face though...

John froze and spun around, dropping his cane and actually running. His leg felt like it was on fire but he disregarded it. He grabbed the man by the back of his hoodie and pulled, spinning him around. The man kept his face pointed to the ground and his hood up, but John thrust back the hood and gazed into a face that was still familiar despite three more years of age, wear and tear.

"...Why?" His voice was choked with tears.

"I had to protect you..." Sherlock replied softly.

John needed no other explanation, what could have been anger dissolved into happiness that his reason for living was still alive. So instead of punching the stupid sod, he pulled him down by the collar of that ridiculous hoodie he had substituted for a trench coat and kissed him on the spot.